Camera CPR

WhiteLight

Senior Member
Man! if i drop my camera in water, I'll probably drown it in my own tears of pain :p

anyway, the mentioned solutions are quite similar to any electronic equipment..
the blower & rice bag trick worked wonders on a phone
 
I was working at a TV station before I retired. We had this idiot working the night Shift in Master Control (The ones that control what is put on the air) He had a drink where it was not supposed to be. Over the on-air switcher. You can gueas what happened next. Well the station went off the air by the next morning when the coke gummed up the works. The chief engineer had to bypass the switcher to get us on the air. I told him he needed to wash the switcher and he just laughed at me. I told him several time. Soak the switcher in water and then dry it with heat for days an if it will ever work then this is what you have to do to start with. Long story short he finally got in touch with an expert in that switcher about two weeks later. Guess what he told him....Soak the switcher in water and then dry.

Switcher worked better than it had for years. It cleaned up problems the switcher had experienced for years. I had the last laugh.

When I managed camera stores we got the I dropped my camera in the ocean several time a year and we always told them the same thing. Battery out flush with clean water and pace in rice.
 

§am

Senior Member
Rice is amazing!!
A couple of grains in your salt shaker keeps your salt dry too!!

Alternatively self indicating silica gel is always handy to have around too.
Unlike rice which can break and become dusty, this stuff doesn't plus you can reuse it.
 

AC016

Senior Member
You can put it in the oven (NOT a microwave oven for obvious reasons!) as well. It's been done and the camera worked. Oatmeal would be another good food to use. My Canon compact film camera drowned during typhoon season in the Philippines. Obviously not as many electronics inside, but i dried it out and it worked fine. However, i had Philippine dirt stuck in the viewfinder!
 

stmv

Senior Member
Yes,, I had a tripod failure near the waterfall. I watched my wonderful D700 tumble into the freezing small river/stream. Time really does sloooowwww dowwnnnnn as you watch your prized possession bounce of the rock, into the air, as you clumsily try to grab the strap,,, miss,, splash.

For a few seconds, your mind actually refuses to accept the reality...

Then I had the choice, do I dive into a freezing stream (around 32 degree water), to try to find a black camera, in dark fast moving water... Well,, of course,, so,, I stripped off my primary layers,,and dove in.. You have about a minute or so,, and there was another waterfall, just 25 feet further down,, I saw what looked like a waving black something, which turned out to be my camera strap. Without the strap, I never would have found it.

I snatched it out, and watched the water pour out of my 24-120 lens!

Turned out the camera store that I had bought the camera was nearby (the camera was only 6 months old by then),, and we rushed the camera to Nikon for emergency repair.

...where it sat for a week, for Nikon to kindly write me a note stating that they SCRAPPED the camera, and by the way, they used to dry these out... because.. well essentially they did not want to do any future warranty work on a camera that had been dropped in water.

So,, I bought another D700, and waited for them to snail mail me back my STILL soggy D700..

When the camera came back, I said,, what the Hay,, I might as well dry/clean the camera myself, and with my cleaning, and the oven trick,,

Poof,, Camera returned back on,, good as can be.. except the AF was still contaminated, which I had my local shop replace two years later (laughs, I am so old school, it took me 2 months to find out that the Auto focus was not working ... I manually focus).

I used the camera for 30K more shots, and then sold it (with full disclosure of the event). Almost a year later, the new owner is still loving the purchase (he should, got a great deal).

So, as long as it is not Salt water, absolutely, these cameras can be restored,,, JUST DON'T ASK NIKON REPAIR TO DO THE REPAIR).

The last topic is kinda sad. Just a year earlier a friend had the same thing happen to his D300, and using the same store/send back, Nikon was still repairing water damaged SLRs. Not any more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
Well,, of course,, so,, I stripped off my primary layers,,
and dove in.. You have about a minute or so,, and there was another waterfall, just 25 feet further down,, I saw what looked like a waving black something, which turned out to be my camera strap, without the strap, I never would have found it.

:applause::applause:
 

SkvLTD

Senior Member
Good to know, not to mention you can eat the rice afterwards to celebrate the revival.

Personally, I'd just take the body as much apart as needs be to get air to most innards and roast everything near some kind of heater.
 

Bill4282

Senior Member
If you want to go the silica route, go to a local gun store. Gun owners buy in in cloth pound bags for rust prevention in their safes. You can rejuvenate by baking in the oven. If it were me, I'd put the camera in a ziplock bag along with the unopened bag, seal and wait 24 hours for the silica to do its thing.
 
Top